Robinhood buys Conversational AI specialist, Pluto
The runaway success that is Robinhood has acquired Pluto.fi this week.
Whilst Pluto isn't only a Conversational AI, that's one of their key offerings. I can see the sense for Robinhood to lift-and-shift Pluto into their platform (one assumes that's the plan), rather than build the whole thing from scratch.
The Pluto website is still live, so I've taken a few screenshots to give you a hint on the service offering:
It is a compelling service if you're into managing your own investments - and, guess what, almost every Robinhood customer will fit into that category of customer.
I like the idea of talking to a judgement-free Conversational AI. That's also very useful for Pluto / Robinhood too - because veering into recommendation-territory
I very much like the idea of being able to schedule prompts like this as illustrated: "Everyday at 9am, give me an overview of the US market."
This will no doubt already be an incredibly powerful tool for many.
And worth paying for too:
That's the pricing strategy as it stands today for Pluto. One imagines this will change slightly - but I would expect this to be integrated into Robinhood's premium offerings, or used to bolster them.
With Pluto, we were getting very close to the much-discussed idea of a 'personal AI agent' – in this case, one specialising in managing your financial ecosystem. The fact that Pluto has been acquired is, I would imagine, good news for Robinhood and Robinhood customers (and Pluto's team/investors). But this also illustrates a market opportunity for others considering offering something similar. There are quite a few other Robinhoods (not to mention banks and investment houses) out there that are going to need to add this capability to their offerings soon.
Is it time to build some more Plutos for the rest of the market? ;-)
Good luck.
Congratulations Team Pluto and if you're a Robinhood customer, look out for this capability coming soon.
You can read more about the acquisition on FinTech Futures here.
